Monday, September 12, 2011

Resolution Agreement Reached at Adrian College

An anonymous reader mailed me a copy of a Resolution Agreement between the Department of Education Office for Civil Rights, and Adrian College in Michigan. In 2008, we blogged about ongoing investigation into a complaint against the college stemming from among other things the college's failure to include a women's locker room in its newly constructed "Multi-Purpose Stadium." (see here and here). Apparently, the inequities between men and women's sports at Adrian College were significant, as the college has agreed to remedies in every area covered by Title IX's athletic regulations. Specifically, the college has agree to:

Evaluate its intercollegiate athletics program "to identify one or ore women's sport team to add in the 2012-2013 academic year."

Develop a written replacement schedule for equipment and supplies, including uniforms, which will ensure equity by gender.

Increase the number of competitive events for softball and women's tennis.

Ensure that women's softball is not the only team stuck with 6 am indoor practices, but that that burden is shared by men's teams as well.

Ensure that the head coach for men's and women's track splits his time equally between the teams, and to hire an assistant coach for women's track.

Improve hiring practices to attract more qualified coaches to the women's program, including by increasing compensation and other conditions of employment to make the job more attractive to qualified applicants.

Provide recruitment funds to men's and women's teams "in proportion to each gender's participation rate in the athletics program" and, as needed, to the women's program at a greater rate in order to make up for the "significant" underrepresentation of women in the athletics program.

Adhere to various reporting and monitoring requirements with respect to these promises.

OCR will continue to monitor the agreement until it determines that the College has fulfilled its terms.